Devils and Blacksheep with Memories of Friends
by MiniCinnamon99
Summary: What if there had been an understanding? What if there had been more than contempt between them when they had met again in the centre of the King's palace? What if there had been grief and kinship and nightmares relived? What if all was not as it seemed. Jack and Hector did know each other once as more than enemies. Here we see the beginning of the end of their fighting history.


Barbossa looked upon his audience with something nearing contempt, though he had no idea why. Sure Jack's demeanour was annoying but that in itself wasn't enough to warrant his ire this morning. It must be the wig. Come to think of it, the blasted thing was itching like the blazes again...

"…But first…What has become of my beloved Pearl?"

His blood froze in his veins, and his brain momentarily stuttered to a halt as images of creaking timbers, slithering ropes, a wall of water, and later a body covered in blood, with a stump of bone peaking from his right leg all flashed across his vision, but he recovered instantly. He'd had quite a bit of time to get use to those images. They no longer shocked him, though they didn't hurt any less.

"I lost the Pearl, as I lost my leg," he snarled in something akin to satisfaction, as he _thumped_ his leg on the table. Maybe he could make Jack suffer as he had these past months. Maybe he could make Jack pay his dues for killing him at Isla de Mureta, and repossessing his beloved ship. Maybe…

"Lost the Pearl?" Jack asked, hard fury in his voice, and blind rage in his eyes. But Barbossa had heard the break. His first word had caught just enough and…it struck something in Hector.

Other images flashed across his mind's eye. Jack walking the beach of the Locker trying desperately to come up with the answers for his current situation and failing utterly. That lost look on his face and the tired lines beneath somber, dead eyes. Jack standing in front of the Kraken's eye, looking for all the world like he had nothing left. A man ready to give up.

The most memorable was Jack sprawled on the deck, a bloody lump on the back of his head the size of an egg, and yet the man was awake. He didn't fight though, he didn't try to marshal his crew back to his side. He simply whispered apologies into the boards of the deck, as a single tear had slid down his face. He apologized to his lady, but made no excuses for himself.

Perhaps...maybe...Jack had already paid in full. And now with his leg gone, maybe Hector Barbossa finally had too.

Suddenly his heart wasn't in this.

"Yes," he said haltingly, "I defended her mightily enough, but…she sunk nonetheless."

And as he looked at Jack more closely, he could see the endless swirling cauldron of emotion his eyes held. He knew that mourning gaze, because he had seen it before moored not far from an abandoned island. And it was worse this time, because now neither of them had any hope of getting the ship back.

He wasn't surprised that Jack lashed out. He could see the disbelief warring with desperation, and those both warring with longing and anger. Reality clashed with unbelievable grief and neither knew which one should win out in Jack's cunning, rational mind.

As the man crawled over the table, Barbossa almost wished he had left the Pearl with Jack. But no…Jack was adaptable, but he would never abandon his ship. He would die before being separated from her again. He wouldn't have severed his leg to escape and reap the benefits of revenge. And even if he had, he was so well known, and so much sought by the law of any nationality, he wouldn't have been granted the title of privateer like Hector had been.

No, it was better this way. Jack still had a chance. But it still made him think. Could Jack have bested Blackbeard? He'd bested every other legend he'd come across. But his own ship turning against him? He doubted even Jack could've survived that nightmare. It was better this way. He had to believe that. Or his leg had been lost for nothing.

"If that ship be sunk properly," Jack growled as the soldiers got him back under control, "You should be sunk with it."

Barbossa looked at Jack's angry countenance with grief licking at the edges of his mask, a smirk coming to his lips. No. It was definitely better this way he decided. Jack would get what he deserved. He had gotten what he deserved, although it pained him to admit it even to himself. Not that he would admit it to anyone else. Blackbeard would get what he deserved. His bitch pup would get what was coming to her, he hoped.

It was better this way.

And then his concentration was broken by the King summoning his attention.

"Captain Barbossa…"

...

Later as Jack was escaping all he could do was smirk to himself and think _I told you he would escape you buffoons. _He even smiled to himself as the monkey-like man swung from the chandelier. In a random thought, he found it to resemble his old pet quite a lot. He missed his darling monkey…only a little more than he'd missed the man himself. Not that either Jack would hear of such foolishness. He hoped.


End file.
